Sony patent would combat piracy by comparing load times

A patent describing a "method for validating legitimate media products" attributed to Sony Computer Entertainment America surfaced earlier this week. Originally filed in August 2011, the patent elaborates on a process by a which a piece of media could be detected as legitimate (not pirated) by comparing two load times against a benchmark for the media.

As seen in the flow chart above, the patent also describes a secondary validation stage in which a serial number and "user identification information" are checked against "reliable data, such as that sourced from the manufacturer or developer of the media title." Examples of the user information could include account names, location, IP addresses, the speed of the user's connection and product license numbers.

The secondary validation cycle would account for load time errors due to hardware issues, but would also be skipped entirely if the first cycle (the load time benchmark comparisons) checks out. Whether the "load time" method for combating piracy is used in future hardware efforts by Sony is unknown.

That's an interesting way to combat this issue. Most pirated materials tend to have their file lay out scrambled into a new structure usually due to the operating system doing the rip reallocation the files based on name/date/size and that does affect the load time due to extra disc seek times.

Wow that's a unique way. Sony engineers at work.
This thread reminded me that since now ps4 is using a more traditional architecture, does that mean there will be more opportunities for hacks? Will sony break out the ban hammers?

I wonder when a nuclear warhead goes off, does the frame rate of real life drop?

This has been used for a while now to flag Xbox 360 users. Problem is... it's not flawless and MS ended up being sued to badly that they stopped banning people unless they were irrefutably violating Xbox Live rules.

That's an interesting way to combat this issue. Most pirated materials tend to have their file lay out scrambled into a new structure usually due to the operating system doing the rip reallocation the files based on name/date/size and that does affect the load time due to extra disc seek times.

I'm interested to see if this goes ahead.

I didn't understand one thing of those you have mention. But man you got really good points.

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